


Einherjar

by Lady_Rougarou



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Aggressive Nux, Canon-Typical Violence, Equal Opportunity War Boys, Female War Boys, M/M, Valhalla, War Boys In Valhalla, War Boys Showing Affection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-08 20:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4320288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Rougarou/pseuds/Lady_Rougarou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You live, you die, and then you live again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Immortan Joe was a false prophet but maybe what he was selling wasn't all bullshit. Or maybe the War Boys made it real by sheer force of will.
> 
> Shout out to my lovely buds [hatebeat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat) and [Tokidoki](http://tokiistheking.tumblr.com) for witnessing my spastic ass through this thing.

In a single heartbeat he was jerking the wheel of the rig, turning it over before the pass and taking Rictus with him, going out hard in the shrieks of twisting metal and the stink of burning guzzolene and then--

_And then_

**And then**

Nux was within the Citadel, standing waist deep in pool of aqua cola.

He was in a small cavern off of a main path, hewn barely large enough to house the pool, in the clearest, cleanest water he’d ever seen. Above him the rock was open to the cloudless blue sky, hot and harsh as ever, and sunlight beat on the top of his head and shoulders.

The War Boy immediately sank to his knees. With his heart firing like a piston and his nerves still reeling from the kamakrazee stunt it was all Nux could do to keep from going under the surface completely. He’d been witnessed, but he’d also died a traitor to Immortan Joe.

The water smelled fresh and Nux could feel it wash away the grime of war almost immediately as it lapped across his skin.

Nux gathered aqua cola into his cupped palms and brought it to his mouth. It was sweeter than anything he’d ever tasted before, even the mother’s milk he’d received on occasion. When his thirst was satisfied he went under completely.

Glory, he could see clear through it. Nux burst above the surface and laughed but that quickly transformed into hysteria. A riot of emotions coursed through him as he stood and sloshed circles, becoming lost in his own thoughts as the adrenaline faded.

Where was he? Valhalla? That shouldn’t be possible. Nux had betrayed his pack, aided a rogue and a blood bag who between them both had caused the deaths of at least three twenty-counts of his own family, and worst of all he’d done it out of weakness and desperation. He’d meant to die that day, as soon as he heard the war drums and the call to arms, but doing it for his god was no longer an option. Dying soft loomed until Capable had found him.

She’d touched him with tenderness and spoken soft words but her eyes were made of steel. How could such a creature be so hard when never having done war?

All she’d wanted was to be free; that was all any of them on the rig had wanted.

Of course he fell in. A War Boy could understand freedom. The sun on their backs? The wind and sand in their eyes, the roar of an engine as they charged? Yes, Nux could do that for them at least. (He could almost feel Slit’s hot breath as if it were hissing against his ear, _Filth!_ )

The wives hadn’t wanted to be locked away from it all.

They'd said, "We are not things."

Still, there was the regret blossoming, sticking sour in the back of his throat and heavy in his chest.

If this was Valhalla, then Slit had to be there. He’d felt the fire of his lancer’s death and tasted the flame while holding on beneath the war rig. If this was Valhalla, Nux would see him again.

Nux climbed out of the pool and wiped the trickling aqua cola from his face, his chest, and at the itching drip down his neck; his smooth, tumorless neck. A hoarse sound left his throat as he began to inspect and pat himself down.

No signs of half-life remained, no more lumps and bumps or sickly pallor. He could not stop poking at his flat neck and taking in great lungfuls of air. The twin bites of Larry and Barry were gone. Nothing hurt.

Nux ran calloused fingertips across his lips. Oh, yes. Scars and body modifications remained. He’d put too much work into customizing his chassis for fate to scrape it all away along with his half-life.

Just outside of the cavern, placed neatly within a carved spot in the stone, were bowls of engine grease and white clay with a rusty old mirror propped behind them. Nux took a breath and reached for the bowl of clay. Whatever was in store for him, he’d face it chrome.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The welcome committee arrives.

Two War Pups nearly ran him down in the dark hall.

The first was taller than the second but they might have been near the same age. Each was chalk white and identical in every other way. It was obvious to Nux that they’d become distracted and abandoned their post. They were now hastily attempting to recover.

“I’m Razza. Didja see the gates?” the taller one asked as he circled Nux. He didn’t wait for a response before he went on, “No one ever sees ‘em! They just wake up here.”

“No, no gates,” Nux said. No gates and no Immortan Joe. “Where’s here?”

“It’s Valhalla,” said the smaller. The second pup had a hopeful expression on his face as he gazed up at Nux. Something about that one was loose in the back of Nux’s brain, some memory rattling around like a lost screw in a crack but he couldn’t reach it.

Valhalla. It was real, then, and he’d made it.

While he stared back at the smaller pup in confusion, the first one had gone back down the hall and retrieved the two bowls.

“Can’t go out there lookin’ like that! Your back ain’t painted!”

The pup was right about that so Nux nodded, managing a smile as he sat down cross-legged and allowed the children to paint him proper. This was a ritual performed every day for as long as there’d been War Boys and something about it happening right now in the middle of a dim stone hallway in Valhalla made for a moment of pure calm.

Moments like that were a rarity.

“Tell me all about this place,” he said.

There wasn’t much of a fight over who got to do what. Razza let the smaller pup snatch the bowl of grease without comment and dutifully went around Nux to begin filling in the white on his back, all the while talking.

“There’s still the Bullet Farm and Gas Town but there’s all the food you could eat!” he chattered. “Big tables full of meat an’ green things an’ sweet things an’ all the aqua cola and rotgut you can drink! Guzzolene, too, and car parts!” Razza moved on to the back of Nux’s head and behind his ears, smoothing the war clay with obvious reverence. “We’re always makin’ war and no one gets the night sweats or dies or stays hurt and _the fun never stops_.”

It was so much to take in at once. Nux had spent so much of his life reaching toward the goal of dying chrome that he hadn’t given much individual thought to where it would send him.

“War Pups get to grow up, too,” said the second pup. His manner as he carefully darkened the grease on Nux’s nose sent the screw rattling again, and Nux tried to work out what exactly it was all about.

It finally came together when the pup hissed a stream of curses as he fumbled the bowl of grease. When Nux had been younger, working his way up through the ranks of black thumbs, this one had been there a second shadow in the garage. He was significantly younger than Nux, not even old enough to be in there, and any time the pup screwed something up (which was all the time) it was accompanied by passionate recitations of all the foul language he had learned from around the Citadel.

Nux and Slit had christened him Try-Hard because of his outrageous War Boy impressions; he had grown out of the need to impress anyone who would listen but had not grown out of the name.

Try-Hard had also been crushed to death in the lift at least a thousand days ago. For a hundred days after, Nux had quietly mourned his absence from the garage.

“Hey, mate,” he said, giving Try-Hard a rough clap on the shoulder. The pup’s eyes widened almost immediately but he scrubbed at them with the back of an arm and stayed hard. Nux warmed at the sight of the young pup. How could he have forgotten this one?

“Nux! I knew Slit was lyin’, callin’ you a traitor.”

_Traitor._ There it was again, his lancer’s hiss sending an aching shiver up his spine.

“So Slit’s here,” Nux murmured. Somehow saying it aloud made it more real.

“Been here for weeks!” came the reply, which made no sense to the War Boy because Slit had only just been witnessed.

“This his driver?” The taller pup finally came around from behind and stood beside Try-Hard to study Nux. “Slit’s gonna kill you dead all over again.”

“He ain’t,” Try-Hard said.

“Is too, Slit’s stronger. And he’s got a new team.”

That bit of information, more than any other, hit Nux hard. It had been bad enough that they’d been separated and pitted against one another in the flight of the wives, but for Slit to go into Valhalla and allow himself to be claimed by others was too much. The bond between driver and passengers was sacred but nothing moreso than a driver and his solo lancer. Nux and Slit were a two-man death squad, a team so familiar with one another’s minds and bodies that they operated seamlessly as one unit. They’d sworn a blood oath to ride eternal together.

Slit belonged to Nux.

“Razza don’t get it,” Try-Hard said, never taking his eyes off of his old hero. His face was scrunched up in defiance as if he could sense Nux’s every thought. “What’s he know? Slit’s _your_ lancer.”

“Not no more,” Razza snapped.

“You let me handle Slit,” Nux said with way more bravado than he actually felt.

“See!?” Try-Hard cried.

Silent after that, he moved through the maze of stone corridors, leaving damp bootprints behind as he followed Razza and Try-Hard toward the familiar sounds of Citadel life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you're interested in what the title references, [you can read about the Einherjar of Norse mythology here!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einherjar)
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://lady-rougarou.tumblr.com) for a bunch of random bullshit. Don't be afraid to harass me.


End file.
